By Nick Clarke, University of Southampton, and Clive Barnett, University of Exeter

In the UK as elsewhere, the Covid-19 pandemic raises a whole series of geographical issues, not least because of the centrality of explicitly spatial strategies adopted by governments in response to the virus. Broad policy directives that aim to change people’s behaviour have ranged from embodied practices of hygiene, to stay-at-home orders, national ‘lockdowns’, and regionally differentiated ‘tier’ systems. And these rules and regulations have carried different normative force, from recommendations (e.g. handwashing) and authoritative guidelines (social distancing) to legally enforceable rules (restrictions on non-essential movement outside the home). These strategies target spatially defined practices of mobility, interaction, and habitation – practices of home and work, commuting and travel, neighbourliness and family. It is these practices that constitute the spaces of encounter through which people engage with wider public discourses.

In our research project, Learning to…